The Anthrax Letters: The Attacks That Shocked America (2 page)

W
hen Pat Hallengren arrived at work on August 10, 2002, she noticed that the middle mailbox was missing. It was the one she had always used. For as long as she could remember, it had stood between two other receptacles outside her window in the American Express travel office in Princeton, New Jersey.

But during the late hours of the previous night, postal authorities had removed the box. Before long, word spread about the reason, and local curiosity turned to horror. The mailbox was found to have contained anthrax spores. When Pat heard this, her first thoughts were about her mailman, Mario. “I really wasn’t concerned for myself. I mean, I just put mail in the box, but Mario had to take it out.” Her worry was understandable.

Anthrax bacteria are as murderous as South American flesheating ants. An army of ants, traveling in the millions, can decimate an immobilized individual by devouring his flesh layer by layer.

Death is gradual and agonizing. Anthrax bacilli do to the body from within what the ants do from without. They attack everywhere, shutting down and destroying the body’s functions from top to bottom. The organisms continue to multiply and swarm until there is nothing left for them to feed on. In 2 or 3 days a few thousand bacilli may become trillions. At the time of death, as much as 30 percent of a person’s blood weight may be live bacilli. A microscopic cross section of a blood vessel looks as though it is teeming with worms.

The anthrax bioterrorism attacks the previous fall, in 2001, had been conducted by mail. On October 4, three weeks after the terror of September 11, a Florida man was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax. His death the next day became the first known fatality ever caused by bioterrorism in the United States. During the following weeks, more people were diagnosed with inhalation anthrax as well as with the less dangerous cutaneous, or skin, form of the disease.

Almost all the cases were traced to spores of
Bacillus anthracis
that had been placed in letters. Perhaps a half dozen letters containing a quantity of powder equivalent in volume to a handful of aspirin tablets paralyzed much of America. During the fall 2001 scare, congressional sessions were suspended and the U.S. Supreme Court was evacuated. Infected mail disrupted television studios and newspaper offices. People everywhere were afraid to open mail.

Four of the anthrax letters were later found, and all were postmarked “Trenton, NJ.” That was the imprint made at the large postal sorting and distribution center on Route 130 in Hamilton Township, 10 miles from Princeton. Ten months after the attacks, when Pat Hallengren’s favorite mailbox had been removed, mailboxes that served the Hamilton facility were belatedly being tested for anthrax. In the first week of August, investigators swabbed 561 drop boxes and delivered the cotton tips to state laboratories. Only that one mailbox, on Nassau Street near the corner of Bank Street in Princeton, tested positive for anthrax. Could that box, not 30 feet from Pat Hallengren’s desk, have been where the poison letters were deposited?

The mailer of the anthrax letters had not yet been found. But 6 weeks before the discovery of anthrax spores in the Princeton mailbox, the U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft had identified a microbiologist named Steven Hatfill as a “person of interest.”

Days after the middle mailbox was removed, federal agents fanned out through the neighborhood. They showed a picture of a steely, thick-necked man to merchants and patrons up and down Nassau Street. It was Hatfill. “Do you remember seeing this person?” they asked. “I don’t recognize him,” Pat Hallengren answered, “but I see so many people on this corner.” Four doors up from the corner, Shalom Levin, the bearded owner of the Red Onion delicatessen, was ambivalent. “I might have seen him walking around here,” he told an FBI official. But perhaps Hatfill’s face seemed familiar, he acknowledged, because he had seen it on TV.

In 2003, long after the discovery of anthrax in the Princeton mailbox, the FBI was still searching for the mailer and Hatfill was still considered a person of interest.

Between October 4 and November 21, 2001, 22 people were diagnosed with anthrax. Eleven contracted the cutaneous form and all survived. But among the 11 who became ill from inhaling spores, five died. In subsequent months, with no new cases, national anxiety eased. But the discovery of the contaminated mailbox almost a year later in Princeton drew a torrent of television and newspaper coverage from around the world. Fear had been rekindled.

Concern about anthrax is as old as the Bible. Primarily a disease of animals, it is thought to have been the fifth of the 10 biblical plagues visited by God on the ancient Egyptians for refusing freedom to the Jews. As recounted in Exodus, horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, and sheep were struck “with a very severe pestilence.”

After their carcasses were burned, the virulence of the anthrax germs persisted, for the soot caused “boils on man and beast throughout the land of Egypt.”

In recent years, anthrax spores have been deemed among the most likely of biological weapons because they are hardy, long lived, and, if inhaled, utterly destructive. A victim is unlikely to know he is under attack. As with other biological agents, anthrax germs are odorless and tasteless, and lethal quantities can be so tiny as to go unseen.

Every 3 seconds or so, a human being inhales and exhales about a pint of air. Each cycle draws in oxygen to fuel the body and releases carbon dioxide, the gaseous waste product. The inhaled air commonly carries with it floating incidentals such as dust, bacteria, and other microscopic particles. If a particle is larger than 5 microns, it is likely to be blocked from reaching deep into the lungs by the respiratory tract’s mucus and filtration hairs. If smaller than 1 micron, a particle is too small to be retained and is blown out during exhalation. An anthrax spore may be 1 micron wide and 2 or 3 microns long, just the right size to reach deep into the respiratory pathway.

A spore is so tiny that a cluster of thousands, which would be enough to kill someone, is scarcely visible to the naked eye. A thousand spores side by side would barely reach across the thin edge of a dime. Once inhaled, the spores are drawn into the bronchial tree where they travel through numerous branches deep in the lungs. Near the tips of the branches are microscopic sacs called alveoli. It is in these sacs that inhaled oxygen is exchanged with carbon dioxide.

Stationed among the alveoli are armies of defender cells called macrophages. These cells sense foreign microinvaders and engulf them. A pulmonary macrophage normally destroys its inhaled captive and taxis it to the lymph nodes in the mediastinum, the area between the lungs. But in the case of anthrax, spores may transform into active, germinating organisms before the macrophage can affect them. The bacteria then can reproduce and release toxin that destroys the macrophage. Thus, in a perverse turnabout, the anthrax bacteria, like soldiers in the Trojan horse, can burst out of their encirclement, into the lymph and blood systems.

An infected person at first is unaware that a gruesome cascade is under way. Although the onslaught is relentless, symptoms do not appear immediately. Fluids that have begun to accumulate in the mediastinum gradually pry the lungs apart. Breathing becomes increasingly difficult, and after a few days a person feels as if his head is being held underwater, permitted to bob up for a quick gulp of air and then pushed under again.

The agony works its way through the body. Nausea gives way to violent, bloody vomiting. Joints are so inflamed that flexing an arm or leg becomes an act of torment. Bloody fluids squeeze between the brain and skull, and the victim’s face may balloon out beyond recognition. The tightening vice around the brain causes excruciating pain and delirium. Survival depends on being provided appropriate antibiotics before the bacteria have released so much toxin that the body cannot recover. If inhalation anthrax is not treated in time, almost all victims suffer a tortured death. One organ after another is decimated—the lungs, the kidneys, the heart—until life is sucked away.

It is because of such ghastly effects that anthrax and other biological agents have been prohibited as weapons by international agreement. The treaty that bans their development or possession by nations, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, uniquely describes their use as “repugnant to the conscience of mankind.” Yet despite this widely accepted moral precept, a germ weapon is seen by some not as a shameful blight but as a preferred instrument of terror.

B
ob Stevens wore a huge smile. He had just reached the observation deck with his wife, Maureen, and daughter, Casey, after a 26-story elevator ride through Chimney Rock, a mountain of granite. Before them lay the stunning expanse of North Carolina’s Chimney Rock Park. Far below and to the right was Lake Lure, long and calm. To the left stood Hickory Nut Falls, where icy water cascaded 400 feet down into a valley of rocks. Seventy-five miles away toward the horizon loomed King’s Mountain. “I feel at peace with the world,” Bob said.

September 28, 2001, a Friday, was a perfect day to visit the park. The horror of September 11 was still raw, and an afternoon of natural splendor would be a pleasant distraction. The previous day Bob and Maureen had driven 11 hours from their Lantana, Florida, home to visit Casey in Charlotte. Then on Friday, after breakfast in Casey’s apartment, they drove west and picked up Route 74 toward Asheville. Ninety minutes later they were in the park. The sky was clear and the autumn air fresh. Color was everywhere—purple mountain flowers, aqua green lichen, red and orange oak leaves. As they walked along a trail, Bob detoured past some rocks to a waterfall. He cupped his hands, reached in, and drank two good scoops of water. Later, on the way back to Charlotte, they had dinner at an Italian restaurant before settling into Casey’s place for the evening. They were still giddy about the mountains and the changing colors.

For Robert Stevens, 63, a veteran photo editor, the scenes in the park were especially enthralling. They fed his esthetic appetite in a way that the two-dimensional images he worked with could not. Still, Stevens enjoyed his job at the
Sun
, a supermarket tabloid published in Boca Raton, 20 minutes from Lantana. Like its half dozen sister publications owned by American Media, Inc., the
Sun
specialized in sensationalism. Bob had worked for one or another AMI tabloid, including the more famous
National Enquirer
, since emigrating from England in 1974. He had tried retirement in 2000 but missed his job and fellow workers. Back at his desk the next year, he delighted in servicing readers who liked stories about psychics and seers and pig races. So what if some tales were bizarre or exaggerated? The pictures he retouched had their own odd esthetic appeal—female Elvis impersonators, women who lost weight through prayer.

Bob’s puckish humor seemed suited to the amusing themes he worked on. But he was serious about his craft. “The best in the business,” judged Lee Harrison, a fellow expatriate from England who had worked with Bob at the
National Enquirer
. “He’s brilliant on the computer, great at touching up photographs to make celebrities look good. Unless of course it was a story about a celebrity not looking too good,” Lee chuckled.

Bob and Maureen were married in 1974 before leaving for the United States. Casey, the youngest of their four children—the other three were from previous marriages—was “the apple of his eye,” Maureen would say. At 21, Casey had recently found a position as an actuary in Charlotte, and her parents were thrilled to see how well she had settled in. Laughs, jokes, and hugs, long a mainstay of Bob’s life, were abundant between father and daughter. The day after they visited the park, they strolled around downtown Charlotte. The weather was windy and chilly, and they spent much of the time in an indoor mall before lunching at an Irish pub. Bob had a penchant for pubs. He frequently stopped for lunch at the Lion and Eagle in Boca Raton or the Blue Anchor in Delray Beach. Both had a clientele of English expatriates like himself. Smoked salmon on brown bread, a pint of Harp, and trading jokes with friends were a favorite way to break the day.

After seeing the office building where Casey worked, they drove back to her apartment. It was late afternoon, and Bob felt uncharacteristically tired. A biking and hiking enthusiast, he was usually brimming with energy. But now he felt he had to rest while his wife and daughter went shopping. He wanted to be in good shape for the next day’s trip to Durham, where he would be meeting Casey’s boyfriend, a student at Duke University. Maureen and Casey returned to the apartment at 7:30 p.m. for a dinner of warmed-up leftovers. Bob joined them but, still fatigued, went to bed soon after.

The next morning, Sunday, Bob seemed better, and after Maureen and Casey returned from church they set out for Durham. But midway through the 2½-hour drive, he began to shiver and shake. They stopped so he could climb into the back seat. “Your face is red,” Maureen observed. Casey began to worry. “Dad, let’s turn around and go home.” “No, no,” Bob insisted, “I’m not going to spoil your day.”

Casey’s boyfriend greeted them at his fraternity house and, when he saw how badly Bob was feeling, took him up to one of the bedrooms to lie down while the others went out for lunch. When they returned at 3:30, Bob was still weak and feverish, so he, Maureen, and Casey decided to go back to Charlotte right away. As they passed the university hospital, Casey and Maureen urged him to stop at the emergency room. He refused, and he continued to refuse as they passed other hospitals and clinics on the return trip. Bob fidgeted in the backseat, alternately sitting and lying down. Sighing frequently, he tilted his head back, saying it helped him breathe more easily. After arriving at Casey’s, he nibbled at dinner, said he wanted to leave for home the next morning, and went to bed. Maureen and Casey stayed up talking and worrying before themselves going to sleep.

When Maureen awoke she saw that Bob’s pillow was soaked with perspiration, but he said he felt all right. They packed the car, hugged Casey goodbye, and were on the road by 6 a.m. Bob insisted on taking the wheel and Maureen agreed to navigate. Sipping frequently from a bottle of water seemed to help Bob recover energy. They stopped once for a brief rest and then for gasoline near Jacksonville, about 300 miles from their destination. They reached Lantana about 5 p.m., and Bob pulled the white Saturn into the driveway of their ranch-style house. After unpacking and sorting the mail, Bob had a turkey sandwich with some hot tea.

Bob and Maureen both felt depleted and took their temperatures. Bob’s was 101, Maureen’s 102. “We’ve come down with a bug,” Maureen thought. Bob went to bed at 8 p.m., and Maureen followed a bit later. Some time after 1 a.m. she awoke to the sound of retching. Bob had vomited in the bathroom and then come back to bed. Maureen noticed that he was fully dressed. She asked him how he felt, and he responded incoherently. She was annoyed with herself for not making him see a doctor sooner. Now she insisted.

Maureen threw on some clothes and helped Bob into the car. JFK Medical Center in Atlantis was only a mile away, and they arrived there at 2 a.m. On admission to the emergency department, Bob seemed delirious. In the words of his medical case description, “he was not oriented to person, place, or time.” Clearly his brain was under some sort of stress. Maureen reviewed his behavior and symptoms for the past few days with the emergency room doctor. After an initial examination the presumptive diagnosis was meningitis, an inflammation of the membrane covering the brain. Although the causes of meningitis are various, one common source is bacterial infection. Accordingly, Bob was started on multiple antibiotics—cefotaxime and vancomycin—in addition to medication for nausea that made him sleepy. Maureen herself displayed none of Bob’s symptoms. Her earlier fever proved to be transient and unrelated to Bob’s.

Around 5:30 a.m. the emergency room staff prevailed upon Maureen to go home and rest for a few hours. When she returned to the hospital at 8 a.m., she learned that Bob had suffered a seizure and been intubated—a tube was threaded through his nose into his respiratory passage. The tube was attached to a ventilator, a device to help him breathe. A spinal tap had also been performed to examine his cerebrospinal fluid for signs of infection or other abnormalities.

Dr. Larry Bush, an infectious disease specialist, is an amiable skeptic with a fondness for conspiracy theories. Medical lore holds that when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras; that is, when trying to come up with a diagnosis, don’t start with remote possibilities. Larry Bush is something of a zebra man. He is inclined toward less conventional thinking. He doubts, for example, the official line that President Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman shooting from the Dallas Book Depository building. “I stood at the site and some bullet trajectories line up with the grassy knoll.” He smiles and shrugs as if to say, “That’s what I think, so shouldn’t I say it?”

Whatever one thinks of his Kennedy assessment, the mind-set of this slightly built physician with a gray-brown beard and mustache helped him point to the diagnosis of a lifetime. Bush began practicing out of the JFK Medical Center in 1989, a year after completing specialty training at the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. At 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, October 2, 2001, he was in his office a few blocks from the hospital. He was about to leave for a meeting at the hospital when the phone rang. “We’ve got a 63-year-old man here with fever and apparent meningitis,” a laboratory technician said. “His cerebrospinal fluid is cloudy and we did a Gram stain. We’d like you to look at it.” Bush shot back, “I’m on my way. See you in a few minutes.”

Cerebrospinal fluid, which runs through the brain and spinal column, is normally clear, like water. A cloudy sample, obtained through a spinal tap, suggests the presence of white blood cells, an indication of infection. The process of identifying the bacteria causing an infection commonly begins with a Gram stain. Introduced in 1844 by the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram, the test involves staining bacteria with crystal violet, a coloring agent that he developed, and then washing them with alcohol. Bacteria tend to fit into one of two categories according to whether they retain the violet color or not. Those that do—for example, bacteria in the genus
bacillus
,
clostridium
, s
treptococcus
, or s
taphylococcus
—are deemed Gram positive; those that do not are Gram negative.

When Bush arrived at JFK Medical Center he went directly to the laboratory. He looked into the microscope and then at the patient’s record. His undergraduate degree was in microbiology, “so I tend to think like a microbiologist as well as a physician,” he says. The Gram stain was positive, and the shape of the bugs amid the white cells suggested they were bacilli of some sort.

Dr. Bush went next door to the emergency department, where Bob Stevens lay unconscious. He introduced himself to Maureen, quizzed her briefly about what Bob had been doing the past few days, and examined him. He saw no skin lesions or indications of trauma and felt no swollen glands. Through the stethoscope he heard a crackling sound when Bob breathed, caused perhaps by an obstruction. It was clear that Bob was very ill, but why? Bush returned to the lab, looked again at the microscopic rods, and played out some thoughts:

Larry Bush, like other physicians, indeed like much of America, had been hearing a lot about biological weapons in recent years. National concern heightened in the 1990s with suspicions that Iraq still had a biological warfare program despite its agreement after the Persian Gulf War to end it. Equally shocking was news about the size of the former Soviet program. In violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, a treaty that bans these weapons, around 60,000 Soviet scientists and technicians had produced tons of anthrax, smallpox, and plague germs. Although the program ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Soviet scientists were subsequently courted by Iran and perhaps Syria, Libya, and other countries deemed unsavory by the American government.